Let me guess: we need a new quango to monitor the proposed solutions to the problem discovered by the previous quango the ICCP, the International Climate Change Partnership. A quango of a quango. Shall we call it the ICAN? The Iternational Climate Adjustement Network? Yes ICAN find endless way of milking taxpayers money!

We certainly need more research to better understand the genesis of the vast climate changes that are known to have occurred throughout geological time. To go off half-cocked with any of the (official or unofficial) proposed schemes, regardless of your/our personal convictions is, at best foolhardy; eg, if enough windmills are erected to make a significant dent in fossil fuel-generated power consumption, does anyone seriously doubt that that scheme will most certainly have some effect on at least local weather? To whit: the windmill removes energy from the upstream air, lessening the energy on the downstream side; what is weather other than nature's way of attempting to establish energy equilibrium.......
Reforestation is hardly a truly long term solution. Even the giant Redwoods, Sequoias, and Bristlecones don't live forever. When they die and decompose what's the ultimate byproduct: the very same CO2 they absorbed in growing (not to mention the gigatons of steadily decomposing detritus - leaves, needles - they create every year they are alive). Passing the problem to the next generation doesn't solve it except for the current generation (cf. Social Security and other Ponzi schemes). Even the miniscule amount of wood used in construction of various types ultimately ends up reverting to its original components. Let's not even think of the problem of water distribution to keep those forests going.

Global warming? Be clear that there is not a scientific consensus that there is any danger from global warming. In FACT the natural state of the planet is historically much more tropical than it is currently.

Further more the claim that CO2 is a culprit of such warming flies in the face of the FACT that during the last ICE-AGE there was three hundred percent more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is today.

So my dears, you are in the midst of a scam. Global warming coupled with CO2 is a vehicle of choice to promote expensive, and often public financed schemes that have little or no relevance to worlds actual climatic health. The greatest threat to the planet is loss of habitat spurred by too many people on the planet consuming the earths bounty quicker than it can be replenished. If you want to save the planet,, wear a condom.

KiwiBuzz wrote: "Climate follows natural cycles. The cycle that produced warming from the 1900s to about 1945 and from 1975 to 1988 has reversed and cooling will follow. Just as it cooled from 1945 to 1975."

Ok I get the bit about climate having cycles, that much is clear to pretty much everyone. Of course you have cycles of varying periodicities overlaying each other which can make it confusing to determine what is causing what.

What still confuses me is that in your first and second posts you talked about cooling but posted a link to graph that (over the time period of that graph) shows a long term warming trend and a short term cooling fluctuation.

I don't see anything in your data that shows a "dangerous cooling" trend.

Your article left out any consideration of ocean acidification. If the accumulated CO2 is left in the atmosphere while some of these geoengineering schemes counteract its planet-warming effects the oceans become increasingly acidic, which many biologists view as significant. The oxygen in the air comes mainly from organisms in the ocean. You can't seriously write about geoengineering without considering ocean acidification. You've joined the crowd on this one.

It seems to me we have the biological solution before us in the form of trees. We need to capture them, bury them forever and let new ones grow, essentially repeating the carboniferous cycle. They're true powerhouses, and they figured out the technology a long time back. And they respond to carbon dioxide. Sometime in the distant future, other organisms would discover new deposits of coal.

"Craving reliable energy that doesn't come with a big side order of carbon, the United States is taking a new look at nuclear power.

But even as they hail President Barack Obama's announcement last month that the government would back $8 billion in loans for new nuclear power plants, some engineers also are urging a new look at an alternative to the uranium fuel those plants will inevitably use.

Thorium, they say, provides all the carbon-free energy of uranium - about 300 times more, actually - with almost none of the guilt.

Thorium plants cooled with molten fluoride salt would leave a fraction of the nuclear waste compared to the uranium-fueled, water-cooled plants in use today. In addition, thorium plants can't melt down and don't produce reliable fuel for bombs.

"What's not to love?" asked Kirk Sorensen, a NASA rocket scientist in Huntsville, Ala., who is earning his doctorate in nuclear engineering."

And the article continues...check it out...This really could be one of a handful of silver bullets to defeat climate change.

Electrify automotive transportation (or at least heavily promote hybrids), Eliminate coal and gas fired power plants, Heavily promote biodiesel and bio-aviation fuels for heavy transport, aircraft. It can be done - with the right focus and investment.

So geo-engineering by way of GHG emissions is benign for some but dumping sulfur based chemicals into the atmosphere is "good"?

I would also love to see how long treaty negotiations take to allow implementation of this newest form of geo-engineering. Also given that climate costs and benefits (in terms of cooling and droughts) of the new geo-engineering will not be evenly distributed across countries there may be some issues related to implementation. Finally do we just allow for ever rising levels of GHG emissions to be offset presumably by ever increasing amounts of sulfur based chemicals being dumped into the atmosphere? What will be the ongoing cost of maintenance for geo-engineering? What about the oceans which are increasingly becoming acidified by rising CO2 levels? Presumably they will eventually continue their death spiral which then leaves us with the small matter of oxygen depletion not only of the oceans but of the atmosphere itself.

Maybe an international effort to invest in the next generation of nuclear power plants (powered by Thorium - not uranium) - to replace coal-fired and gas-fired plants - will go a long way to limiting carbon dioxide (and mercury)emissions.

The International Thorium Energy Organization - based in London- has a lot of great information on the topic. Check them out, get the word out, and if governments can sponsor research into these new reactors - you have a significantly lower radiation alternative to traditional nuclear technology, and a much more abundant supply of fuel.

Why does no magazine or paper ever make the smallest mention that the world hasn't been heating up for the past 15 years. And even if it were heating, isolating the variable to C02 in such a large system is impossible; and absolutely not conclusive. Were talking about 100 parts per MILLION in CO2 increases. And given the wide scale temperature number tinkering, it's hard to trust the data at all.

Is it not obvious, that the powers at be are trying to create a new commodity + a new method of control. There are much more serious pollution problems other than carbon dioxide. In 3rd world nations, the focus is on harmless CO2 when their are so many other causes of environmental devastation. Carbon monoxide which is actually deadly, and causes a stronger green house effect than CO2, can be controlled by tougher smog laws. Cars and factories can put out almost none with the right technology. And yet, we see the world demonizing CO2, a natural result of life.

If the powers at be actually cared about the environment, and not about power, control, and money, they would at focus on the problems that will create the biggest environmental boon for the least buck/economic chaos.

Even in an era when AGW went from the latest craze to obvious (science) hoax, geoengineering seems like a great study, not in the least bit within the budget of any country with an aging population, (all of them), and not in the least bit practical.

Before another dime is spent on the AGW hoax, I would more spent on discovering why the Earth's climate has stayed within a comparatively narrow band over millions of years, meteor strikes, changes in the Sun, still a fairly narrow climate band.

While I am a huge fan of heroic engineering, I question the wisdom of using the same statistical models for global climate to model the effects of grand scale engineering of the atmosphere. If the climate science were more reliable, then modeling outcomes from geoengineering might be reasonable, but current modeling has margins of error that are unquantifiable due to issues with methodology and quality of inputs. I don't want to see multi-trillion dollar carbon management policy prescriptions made on the basis of what remains a very weak science any more than I want to see deliberate attempts to manipulate climate on the same basis.

Of course anybody who actually initiated a significant geo-engineering effort would be legally liable for the consequences. The lawyers' bills alone, quite apart from any compensation payments, would add a great deal to the cost of any programme. The only kind of geo-engineering that could avoid this might be to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Stabilizing the climate on our planet can only be economically achieved by encouraging reforestation, reducing acidification and controlling our population. It is much more efficient to utilize pollution control at the source than implementing geoengineering controls. Lets not make our problems more complicated than they should be. This article shows that mankind has problems facing the easy truth.

KiwiBuzz wrote: "Climate follows natural cycles. The cycle that produced warming from the 1900s to about 1945 and from 1975 to 1988 has reversed and cooling will follow. Just as it cooled from 1945 to 1975."

KiwiBuzz, your assertion is not supported by facts.

Look at the temperature over the period you mention: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermedi.... The trends you mention are there, but they are minor variations superimposed on a much more powerful trend of global warming. It is now about 0.7 C warmer than in 1900, and the trend is clearly up. And that while solar activity is currently low: it should be cooling, but it isn't.

@Harmsworth, I looked up your claim that it simply takes a volcano eruption to send us into an ice age, as you recommended. I did not find any support for your claim.

While it is true that the tilt of the earth might change and this would cool things down, this is a process that takes at least 10,000 years and it requires polar ice caps to increase. Instead, what we see is heating in the order of 0.5 degrees C per century and increasing ice caps. (See http://www.skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm)

While no doubt that notions of geoengineering will win many adherents, at basis it should be understood that the primary impetus for most will be the illusion of continuing that we have, and business-as-usual.

That is not only a Faustian bargain, but madness.

Even if mankind could correctly temper the climate, which is a huge if, there are not only the many awful downsides to consider if all goes wrong, but what our changing climate signifies in the first place. It is but a sign and symptom of the deeper malady of the species having caused it. Our rapidly changing climate is symptomatic of the innate imbalance within the soul of mankind, of a child now adolescent unwilling to adopt adult responsibilities.

Even if the weather perfect, we still face the many conundrums of rapacious use of the Earth's resources, of willful and gross overpopulation, or countless wars and non-productive conflicts, conversely a distinct lack so often of intelligent discussion, planning and action. In short, we as a species are headed over a cliff on such a path, unfortunately taking many another innocent with us, and only a question of which of the many ills we continue will catch up with us first.

Solving our climate woes is a relatively simple task, if not necessarily an easy one. We know the steps. All that is required is to stop abusing this planet as quickly as possible. The challenge in that is not nearly as technical as metaphysical. For it will require a human species willing at last to evolve to a higher plane. However in doing so not only helping to allow this Earth to heal Herself, but we too in the process.

Prior to the present extended period of cold climate which is part of a larger period of fluctuating ice ages the world was a much warmer place than it is today. Along with this warmer weather came higher humidity due to increased evaporation from the oceans and the fact that warmer air holds more moisture.

As a consequence of this global warming, the desert areas of North Africa and the interior of Australia were much wetter and lush. I am a fan of increased forestation and more productive arable land. Global warming will take care of this. We will lose some coastal land but we have adequate time to prepare for it and we will be better off afterward.

We should be worrying about what we will do if we use up all the fossil fuels and still can't keep the planet from freezing over in the ice age that is coming as we move out of the present inter-glacial period.